Baykeeper In The News

The worst environmental nightmare on the bay in years. The economic savior of a battered town. Depending on who’s talking, those are the takes on a plan to install a massive cement mill and a shipping terminal on the southern edge of Vallejo. . . According to George Torgun, managing attorney for Baykeeper, piles of coal, pet coke and other...

In the 30th victory for Baykeeper’s Bay-Safe Industry Campaign, the operators of a waste disposal and recycling facility on the San Francisco Bay shoreline recently agreed to keep polluted storm water out of the Bay.

For decades, dozens of hulking retired military ships bobbing in the Suisun Bay shed paint chips, causing a hazard to fish and wildlife, according to Baykeeper. "We discovered that the vessels were putting tons of pollution into the bay," said Sejal Choksi-Chugh, Baykeeper executive director. Baykeeper and other environmental groups' 2007 lawsuit...

The California State Lands Commission failed to consider potential impacts to public trust resources when it approved a project allowing a company to mine sand from the bottom of San Francisco Bay, a state appellate court said. The Nov. 18 ruling from California's First Appellate District handed San Francisco Baykeeper a partial victory in its...

The State Lands Commission violated the public trust doctrine when it approved the dredge mining of sand from sovereign lands under the San Francisco Bay, the First District Court of Appeal ruled yesterday. . . . Baykeeper, which has been fighting the project for years, argued that the mining is exacerbating a serious erosion problem.

A California appeals court has ruled that sand in the San Francisco Bay must be considered a public trust resource, potentially challenging the practice of mining for sand in the Bay that’s in turn used in construction projects. Wednesday’s ruling in the lawsuit between San Francisco Baykeeper and the California State Lands Commission in the...

After inspectors found certain explosive packaging "unsatisfactory," Caltrans has decided to delay the implosion of a section of the old part of the Bay Bridge. Ian Wren, of San Francisco Baykeeper, is not sold on the idea of the bubble curtain containing all the debris. "There will be a large plume of concrete dust and debris . . ."

Mercury, a potent neurotoxin, builds up in fish and can cause serious illness in both humans and wildlife. “Mercury is invisible and prevalent throughout San Francisco Bay,” said Sejal Choksi-Chugh, executive director of San Francisco Baykeeper. Despite cleanup efforts, Bay fish still have high levels of mercury.

Nearly a year after San Jose shut down the Bay Area’s biggest homeless encampment, hundreds still live along city creeks. . . The environmental group Baykeeper announced a lawsuit against the city in 2014, over the hazards that large “rafts” of trash and fecal bacteria posed to public health and the creek’s flagging runs of steelhead and chinook...

The implosion of the largest of the piers supporting the old Bay Bridge -- the underwater equivalent of a five-story concrete building -- will take place Nov. 7. . . Baykeeper will observe the implosion as a test of the method, said George Torgun, the group's managing attorney.